Career Counselling Advice

Where Will You Be In The Future

“Please tell me which is the best career”

“In which career will I make the most money?”

“Which career has the best ‘scope’?”

These are the questions I am faced with on a regular basis not only from students, but also from their parents. I wish I could answer them ….. but I am only a counselor, not an astrologer or a palm reader. I can assess a person, find out all the abilities, traits, aptitude and intelligences, and I can match them to the most suitable careers. But can I predict how much money the person is going to make? If I could do that I would not be sitting here as a counselor and would probably be minting money myself elsewhere.

In today’s era of innumerable challenging and rewarding careers it is so sad to see people following the herd mentality and losing out on very promising opportunities.

There are very nice, simple and proven methods to select the right career most suited to an individual, match it to his or her interest/ passion if any, and thus select a course and vocation that will be most successful, profitable, …. and enjoyable.

If you wish to take that path, I can assure you that you will never regret your decision, and you will be able to make your vocation into a vacation.

Wide Choices Beyond PUC

PUC results are out, CET exams are over, and there is a mad rush for admissions. It will help to take a few minutes and explore that though competition has increased tremendously, opportunities have in fact increased much more. Here is a quick check-list (definitely not exhaustive, there are many more) of courses a student who has completed PUC can consider:

For those who have completed PUC / 12 th with Physics, Chemistry and Biology:

Chartered Accountancy (also open to Science students) through Common Proficiency Test (CPT), while you are doing your degree in any subject. Also Chartered Management Accountants, Company Secretary etc.

5 year BA + Ll.B or BBA + Ll.B (with option to stop after getting a 3 year degree)

Mass Communication (offered in BA with 2 other subjects). Bachelors degrees in languages, translation, book publishing

Bachelor of Travel Administration

Government recognized 3 year diplomas in Library Science, Business Administration

Two year Diploma in Education (D.Ed.)

Degrees in social sciences covering psychology, sociology, economics, political science, history, and many other subjects

Employment as Airman in the Indian Air Force, with many opportunities to pursue higher studies while you get full salary.

For those who have not been able to get through PUC

Those above 18 years in age can apply directly to Open Universities for Degree courses in Arts, Commerce or Science through a simple Bachelors Preparatory Exam.

Polytechnical Diplomas in Engineering etc, with possibility of subsequently getting admission directly in 2 nd year B.E. through special CET (lateral entry)

As mentioned above, this is only an indicative list, there are many more. Explore thoroughly before you take the next step. And ensure that the course you select matches your interest, aptitude and personality.

Two Sides of the Virtual World

Game Design has already become a very exciting career with dozens of colleges offering Bachelor of Design and also Diploma courses specializing in this field. Start-ups have made millions within a short time of devising the most unusual and challenging games that are being downloaded by tens of thousands of young and old people.

The criticism against computer or mobile games is that it shuts the person away from the real world into one of make-belief and thus takes away his life skills, particularly social skills. Since some of the games are so fascinating that they become addictions, some people are getting completely isolated into the virtual world. As a great relief has come Niantic Labs’ project Pokemon Go, which was originally launched as Ingress in 2012. It is estimated that the game is downloaded more than 11 million times. The unique feature of this game is that it gets the player out of the house, to discover the city’s landmarks, making people walk around and go into new areas, meeting others in person. Some people are also travelling to other cities as part of their exploration.

Though the game primarily involves competitive spirit, people do meet to set aside differences and show camaraderie, and there are many instances of members of one faction helping lower-level members of the opposite faction to come up to their level. People are known to meet and share stories, eat and drink, and show off their latest acquisitions. On the other hand, for those who are stuck to gaming and Internet, are losing valuable time and are unable to wean themselves back into the real world, NIMHANS has started a SHUT clinic at Nimhan’s Centre for Well- being. Contact 080-26685948 or mail them at
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Future of IT Professionals

Though the writing on the wall has been fairly clear since the past many years, lately the media has been highlighting the fact that large IT services companies are in the process of laying off employees in significant numbers. Unfortunately the ones most likely to be hit are those who have put in 10 to 20 years service and their employers are finding them too expensive to retain. The other factor is that in the IT sector technology changes are rapid and those who cannot learn new skills are finding themselves outdated.

This should be an eye-opener to those who enter courses and colleges purely looking at ‘campus recruitment’ and starting salaries. It is better to struggle a bit at the beginning of one’s career and then move on smoothly, rather than to start high, build up hopes, and then get stranded mid-career when financial and family responsibilities are much higher.

With the coming of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, many jobs currently in demand are likely to be phased out, as machines will program themselves and human requirements will be restricted to supervisory and high-expertise areas. Added to that is the move of the US government to ensure that jobs remain within their country. Already large IT firms like Infosys have announced that they will be recruiting tens of thousands of employees locally in the USA, which obviously will reduce the demand for Indians.

The scope of Artificial Intelligence (AI) was demonstrated recently when Google’s computer program AlphaGo beat the world’s top-ranking player in an ancient Chinese Game Go. The significant factor is that this game requires human “intuition” to succeed.

Similarly, campus recruitment is also showing a downtrend (as much as 20% less in some colleges) and is expected to dip significantly in 2018. On the other hand recruitment of product and core companies seems to be better. In the last issue I had mentioned about the rise of Data Sciences as a promising career. Reports have shown that ‘Data Scientist’ was ranked as the No. 1 job in USA for the year 2016.

Digital Society: The new generation is being referred to as Digital Natives. On the other hand elders are Digital Migrants i.e. they came into the digital world after have lived in a non-digital world for the first few years of their life. To understand and manage the new generation, M.Sc. courses in Digital Society have been started by institutions such as IIIT Bangalore at Whitefield (www.iiitb.ac.in) and Central University of Rajasthan. They are open to graduates from any stream. Even IIT-ians